Chapter XXVI.—Death of
Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople. What Eudoxius said in his
Teaching. Eudoxius and Acacius strenuously sought the Abolition of the
Formularies of Faith set forth at Nicæa and at Ariminum; Troubles
which thence arose in the Churches.

Macedonius,13491349 Soc. ii. 43; Ruf. H. E. i. 21. Soz. has
independent details.
on his expulsion from the church of Constantinople, retired to one of
the suburbs of the city, where he died. Eudoxius took possession of his
church in the tenth year of the consulate of Constantius, and the third
of Julian, surnamed Cæsar. It is related that, at the dedication
of the great church called “Sophia,” when he rose to teach
the people, he commenced his discourse with the following proposition:
“The Father is impious, the Son is pious”; and that, as
these words excited a great commotion among the people, he added,
“Be calm; the Father is impious, because he worships no one; the
Son is pious, because he worships the Father.” On this
explanation, he threw his audience into laughter. Eudoxius and Acacius
jointly exerted themselves to the utmost in endeavoring to cause the
edicts of the Nicene Council to fall into oblivion. They sent the
formulary read at Ariminum with various explanatory additions of their
own, to every province of the empire, and procured from the emperor an
edict for the banishment of all who should refuse to subscribe to it.
But this undertaking, which appeared to them so easy of execution, was
the beginning of the greatest calamities, for it excited commotions
throughout the empire, and entailed upon the Church in every region a
persecution more grievous than those which it had suffered under the
pagan emperors.13501350 Cf. with Ruf. H. E. i. 21.
For if this persecution did not occasion such tortures to the body as
the preceding ones, it appeared more grievous to all who reflected
aright, on account of its disgraceful nature; for both the persecutors
and the persecuted belonged to the Church; and the one was all the more
disgraceful in that men of the same religion treated their fellows with
a degree of cruelty which the ecclesiastical laws prohibit to be
manifested towards enemies and strangers.